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MON, 16 JUL 2001 14:45:21 GMT

Anniversaries: Ten Years Later

This July 7 marked exactly ten tears since the "ten-day war," that is,
armed clashes between the Slovenian Territorial Defense and police, on
one side, and the Yugoslav People's Army on the other. It all started
that morning, after Slovenia's independence was officially proclaimed
and the national flag hoisted in downtown Ljubljana. The fighting ended
with a temporary cease-fire and then a permanent treaty, reached on July
7, on the island of Brioni, and brokered by the European Community
(today's European Union). The Brioni Declaration was signed as the first
in a series of diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis in the former
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

AIM Ljubljana, July 7, 2001

On June 25 ten years ago the Slovenian Parliament, acting on the basis
of a plebiscite, adopted a declaration of independence. "Today, anybody
may dream what they want; tomorrow is a new day," said Slovenian
President Milan Kucan in Ljubljana, while a Territorial Defense squad
was saluting the lowering of the Yugoslav flag and the raising of
Slovenia's. The same night events took the expected course -- early in
the morning Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) troops headed towards the
border crossings. Slovenia responded with barricades, which in turn were
destroyed by tanks. JNA armor had no mercy for civilian vehicles
positioned to stall their progress, and the air force targeted TV and
radio transmitters. Sporadic fighting went on for 10 days. The outcome
was not hard to predict.

"Forces belonging to the Republic of Slovenia assaulted all 35 border
crossings and certain smaller units in 87 watch towers and 40 other
facilities... Since our forces numbered only 2,000 people, Slovenian
Territorial Defense and police units easily outnumbered us, the ratio in
some locations being 10 or 20 to 1. While our vehicles used the roads,
the other side took the advantage offered by the mountains and was
assisted by the local population, previously exposed to aggressive
propaganda," recalls retired JNA general Konrad Kolsek, in his recent
book, "Memories of the Beginning of the 1991 Armed Conflict in
Yugoslavia."

Kolsek, an ethnic Slovenian, was at the time commander of the Fifth
Military District based in Zagreb. Acting on orders issued by the JNA
General Staff and the federal government (Federal Executive Council) he
launched an offensive on his home republic. After ten days of fighting,
however, it became clear that the JNA had no support from the dying
federation or Serbia, where Milosevic (according to Borisav Jovic, then
Serbian representative in the joint Yugoslav Presidency) said it should
fight for the borders of "the future Yugoslavia."

It all ended with the assistance of the EC Troika in Brioni, where a
three-month moratorium was declared on all decisions. The EC demanded
that all federal border signs be reinstalled, all unilateral acts
suspended, the return of all weapons seized from the JNA, etc. Only a
part of these requirements was met. Slovenia's leadership was the first
to realize that Europe was only making empty threats because it was
recognizing the factual state of affairs; after all, this was EC policy
ever since the very outset of the crisis (The only exception was the
intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). After the
publication of Kolsek's book it is interesting to compare the
recollections of different participants of the Brioni talks 10 years
ago. The first version was offered by Borisav Jovic, a Presidency member
at the time, in his diary.

"We had talks with the EC Troika: Van den Broeck, Jacques Posse and Joao
Pineiro, foreign ministers of the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Portugal,
on Brioni. Our talks were held during the attempts to have Slovenia and
Croatia observe their promises and, with EC assistance, suspend their
separatist decisions for three months, so that in the meanwhile a
political agreement could be found. Practice so far had shown that
nothing would come of it, and in the talks the EC threatened and warned
Yugoslavia much more than the separatists and openly announced a
'change' in its position, in favor of dissolving Yugoslavia," Jovic
wrote. He than quotes EC envoy Van den Broeck: "I am very pleased after
hearing yesterday from Mr. Milosevic that he is in favor of the right to
self-determination, that he accepts that too, and that, in time it could
lead to the secession of certain republics from Yugoslavia. I was also
very pleased to hear that he does not deny the principle of
self-determination, but that he demands that such conclusion be based on
negotiations or a dialogue, in other words, that the future of
Yugoslavia should be decided in peaceful negotiations. In regard to this
we very much agree with Mr. Milosevic."

Officially, the European Community dictated very serious conditions to
the politicians in Ljubljana as well. "I think you are right when you
constantly stress that any solution is possible if it is the result of
negotiations. We keep stressing that unilateral acts, as such, will not
lead to peaceful solutions... In our talks with Slovenians we have
clearly said that there is a number of unresolved differences and
problems... We have clearly told the Slovenians that if they want to
attain their aspirations and their right to self-determination, they can
do so only through negotiations," warned an EC representative.

It all ended very differently, however. At the beginning only weapons
were used, and negotiations came later, to confirm the actual situation
on the ground. What was observed were the results achieved by military
means. The SFRY Presidency (composed of Janez Drnovsek, Stjepan Mesic,
Borisav Jovic, et al.) could but confirm that the JNA should withdraw
from Slovenia, and both Belgrade and Ljubljana voted in favor. The fact
that Slovenia ultimately became independent thanks to Serbian votes in
the SFRY Presidency (and that of Janez Drnovsek, of course), but that
current Croatian President Stjepan Mesic voted against, is nowadays
conveniently forgotten. Thus, for instance, at a round table discussion
held at the end of June in the Zagreb Intercontinental Hotel on the
occasion of Slovenia and Croatia's independence, the participants, Janez
Jansa, Dimitrij Rupel, Igor Bavcar, Stjepan Mesic, Martin Spegelj, et
al,. complimented one another. Only the Ljubljana-based Delo newspaper's
correspondent from Zagreb warned of this somewhat embarrassing
historical fact. Finally, it is beyond doubt that the JNA's departure
from Slovenia meant not only the end of the SFRY and the beginning of
Slovenia's independence, but the start of bloody wars which have yet to
end.

As far as Slovenia was concerned, the crisis ended with the signing of
several agreements between the JNA and Slovenian forces (on the
"preservation of weapons and apartments belonging to the outgoing JNA"
and the like) which were not worth the paper they were written on. The
weapons that remained in Slovenia today belong to the Slovenian army,
the apartments were largely privatized, and the families of former
officers of the defeated army have been denied the right to live in them
and to social benefits... Slovenia marked the tenth anniversary of its
independence with fireworks, a huge celebration on Republic Square and a
speech delivered by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the only
representative of the EC that many years ago had tried to resolve the
crisis in the former Yugoslav federation.

The media noted that Schroeder's announced address to the Slovenian
people had resulted in certain dilemmas and brought up bad memories,
because German speeches never brought any good to the country in the
past. Given the current friendly relations, certain independent
columnists saw the appearance of Schroeder as an excessive fawning on
Germany. Thus it happened that several daily newspapers published
editorials entitled "Danke Deutschland," alluding to the servile
gratitude expressed until several years ago to power-mongers in Bonn and
Berlin by neighboring Croatia.

Be it as it may, on the same day the Brioni agreement was reached ten
years before, some other European representatives arrived in the former
Yugoslavia with yet another "peace plan." Their destination this time
around, was Skopje, the capital of the last former Yugoslav republic to
be hit by the war as it made its way south.